A series of random thoughts, rants and comments on things I think about but probably shouldn't.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

thought of the day 2009 06 19 - Heimlich

I like history, all kinds of history, military history, political history, even medical history. And I'm curious now about the history of the Heimlich maneuver. It raises some serious questions. Why a 'maneuver'? I mean I would consider it more of a technique than a maneuver. It's not like you're repositioning an aircraft carrier group. You're whopping someone in the sternum, that's not a maneuver, that's a technique. When a vascular surgeon repairs a patient damaged during a triple bypass, that's not a bypass 'maneuver'. This whole thing is incorrectly named.

But beyond that, how the hell was this developed? At some point it must have been developed and practiced right? Did some twisted German guy line up a bunch of people and get them to choke on stuff to see what would work? I'm sure it wasn't just some guy who magically thought this shit up. It wasn't some bolt of inspiration, there must have been some development involved with this. And testingg too. Not like the AMA would approve a fuck damn thing without multiple double blind studies. I can see it now. Some twisted fucking German doctor lining people up like Jews in a camp.

"tried punching patient 1 in the stomach today, that didn't work. Attempted to kick patient 2 in the chest, did not dislodge the piece of steak. stood behind patient 3 and acted in a manner which looks like I molested her, success."

and how well does that work if the patient has ridiculously large breast implants? I'm sure Heimlich didn't have to worry much about this during his day, but it's important now I would imagine. Especially in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. You'd have to make sure you didn't pop one. I wonder if someone did the technique incorrectly and accidentally popped one. I guess in that case you would have to maneuver around the fake boobs, so I guess that could validate the name.